


we build our altar here

by oopshidaisy



Series: seducing norse gods for fun and profit [1]
Category: Iron Man (Comics), Loki (Comics), Marvel, Marvel 616
Genre: Bondage, Canon Compliant, Dirty Talk, Hair-pulling, Light Dom/sub, M/M, Missing Scene, Oral Sex, Orgasm Delay/Denial, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Resolved Sexual Tension, Sensation Play, Service Submission, Tony Stark's Scientific Curiosity, Wall Sex, this definitely happened in canon just trust me on this one
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-15
Updated: 2020-01-15
Packaged: 2021-02-18 22:14:07
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,690
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22267363
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oopshidaisy/pseuds/oopshidaisy
Summary: What always struck Tony was how trustworthy Loki’s eyes could seem, when he was making an effort. It was probably another being-a-god thing (he made a mental note to ask Thor about it) but it was never any less beguiling.“Recently, my brother showed me my fate. Literally. It was written down in a book in the library of Asgard and it told of my long and boring life ruling over Jotunheim, stuck in a perpetual blizzard, forced into a position of wretched benevolence.” Loki looked up at him. “You know what it’s like to long for a bit ofdebauchery, don’t you, Stark?”
Relationships: Loki/Tony Stark
Series: seducing norse gods for fun and profit [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1614547
Comments: 20
Kudos: 242





	we build our altar here

**Author's Note:**

> this is based on the comic book loki #2, but good news! you don't have to have read that for this to make sense.  
> as a result, some of the dialogue is daniel kibblesmith's, not mine. i wrote this simply because there is a four-page interlude in the comic during which loki and tony definitely had sex, and no-one can prove otherwise.

“Loki. To what do I owe this extreme displeasure?”

A few months ago, Thor had given Tony the low-down on what was going on with Loki these days, and Tony had really tried to pay attention. But the Norse God stuff always went over his head, and where Loki was concerned things were always three-hundred times more difficult, so Tony couldn’t help his shock at Loki’s appearance, stood at Stark Unlimited’s front desk sporting a t-shirt with a pun on it and trendy sunglasses. It was certainly a creative approach to world domination.

“Tony!” Loki gasped in apparent delight. Tony, visible to him only in holographic form, scowled. He had more important things to be getting on with. Never mind that he’d been sequestered in his workshop for six hours now and hadn’t managed much more than poking around in a couple of his suits’ helmets. “Love the pencil skirt. When I go femme, it’s usually a bit more ‘fur coat and bustier,’ but New York is so _hot_ this time of year. Especially when you’ve been ruling over a frozen wasteland.”

Right. Tony’s holographic head was on FRIDAY’s holographic body. Tony should have known Loki would find a way to make that into a flirtation. It was welcome, but mostly insofar as the Avengers kept a running tally of how blatantly Loki had flirted with them and Steve was currently in the lead.

“Gonna need you to focus up, pal,” Tony said. If Loki made a dick joke, that was a hundred points; he only needed twenty to surpass Steve’s score. “I don’t know what this is, but coming here was an all-time boneheaded move, even for you. This is my _house_ , genius. Sometimes it’s the Avengers’ house. And I don’t know if you remember, but you’re sort of our arch-enemy.” Tony definitely remembered Thor saying something about redemption, but he remembered Loki’s last attempt to destroy the earth far more vividly, so: “This entire building is a weapon designed to fight _specifically_ you, and I’ve been planning for this moment since day one,” he said, which wasn’t exactly true, but if there was one person for whom theatricality could pay off, it was Loki.

“Stark, please. I just came here to talk.”

The gold, horned headband was the only dent in Loki’s unthreatening appearance. More than anything, he looked like a Millennial, right down to the floppy hair and painted nails. Tony would walk through hell backward before he’d admit that it was a good look for him.

“Cool, super into it. Can you take, like, half a step to your left, please?” he said.

“My left?”

“Never mind, I’ll eyeball it.”

Tony took a certain amount of sadistic pleasure in pressing the button that would launch Loki up into the workshop and – as a bonus – into the shackles that were waiting for him. The huge gun that was trained on him was mostly for show; in its current state, a shot would be unlikely to produce more than a light tickling sensation in its victim. That, or it would fry them more effectively than an electric chair could ever hope to – there were a fair few kinks in the programming. It wasn’t like he was planning on actually turning it on.

But Loki wasn’t even struggling against the metal that was wrapped around his neck, wrists, torso, thighs and ankles. He didn’t look _happy_ , exactly, to be spread up against a panel like a pinned butterfly, but there wasn’t fear or anger in his eyes.

“Okay, Loki,” Tony said, taking a nonchalant sip of his espresso. “Let’s talk.”

“Need…advice.” He _was_ a skilled liar; Tony knew full well that he wasn’t being choked by the restraints. “King…to king.”

“I’m not ‘ _king_ ’ of earth,” Tony informed him shortly, setting his coffee down and moving closer.

“Aren’t you, though?”

Tony gave himself ten points for the way Loki said _that_ , silky smooth and like he knew exactly what it did to Tony, the comparison to royalty. Bastard probably saw right through the armor to the Arthurian fanboy underneath.

“ _Look_ ,” Tony said, shaking himself out of the thrall. He’d gotten himself out of the habit of falling for Loki’s charms _years_ ago, and just because this was Loki with a new stylish look and the same wicked grin didn’t give him an excuse to go forgetting that. “Since you’ve saved the world more recently than you’ve destroyed it, I’ll give you three words to explain what you’re doing here before I fire up Betsy.”

He let his finger hover threateningly over his watch, without (god help him) any intention of causing his captive harm. If Loki could lie, so could he.

“Thor…sent me.”

Tony sighed. With a tap of his wrist, the restraints released Loki straight onto the ground. Hands and knees.

Loki murmured something that might have been _thanks_. Tony assumed it was sarcastic, regardless.

“Of course he did,” he said, before Loki had a chance to get up and tower over him. He was going to press his advantage for all it was worth. “You’re the only soft spot _on_ that wall of Viking muscle. God, I gotta get back in the gym.” It was still difficult to think of this new body as his own, but he’d seen Thor (and Steve) recently enough to feel self-conscious about it. “So,” he pressed, forcing himself back on topic with some effort, “how’re you and the new All-Father getting along these days?”

Loki, making no effort to get up, coughed and said, “Long story.”

What always struck Tony was how trustworthy Loki’s eyes could seem, when he was making an effort. It was probably another being-a-god thing (he made a mental note to ask Thor about it) but it was never any less beguiling.

“Recently, my brother showed me my fate. Literally. It was written down in a book in the library of Asgard and it told of my long and boring life ruling over Jotunheim, stuck in a perpetual blizzard, forced into a position of wretched benevolence.” Loki looked up at him. “You know what it’s like to long for a bit of _debauchery_ , don’t you, Stark?”

“Alright, stand up,” Tony said.

“As you wish.”

His movements almost ostentatiously graceful, Loki got to his feet. He wasn’t as tall as Tony remembered – he supposed this must be a new body for Loki, too, although fuck knew he still didn’t understand any of it.

“My brother believes I should be honored by an everlasting rule, but…”

“But you’re bored.”

“Hm. I knew you’d understand.” It was a trustworthy smile, too. “As I told _him_ , I’m too young and beautiful to retire.”

“Ruling a kingdom isn’t _exactly_ retirement,” Tony reminded him.

“Is it not? For one of my persuasion?”

“Oh, so this is your _we’re not so different, you and I_ bit?”

“Well, if the cliché fits.” Loki smiled, took a step closer. “Regardless. I told him I would live out the rest of my days as Jotunheim’s beloved king. On one condition.”

“Which is?”

“Let me join the Avengers?”

Tony felt his eyes widening. “Uh-huh. And what did Thor say to that?”

Loki rubbed at the back of his neck, shoulders coming up: he was projecting harmlessness to an extent that made him impossible to believe.

But, god, Tony _wanted_ to believe him.

“He said to ask you.”

It was that, somehow, that made Tony aware of how thoroughly Loki had invaded his space. He’d barely have to lift his hand to—

Belatedly, it occurred to him that Loki was trying more seriously than usual to seduce him.

“And you thought you’d…?”

“No, this is just for fun.” Loki’s eyes twinkled. “It’s always fun to play with you, Stark.”

“Oh, fuck it,” Tony said, and kissed him.

Loki, to his credit, took it very much in stride. Without so much as a pause for adjustment, his tongue was in Tony’s mouth and his body was pressed entirely against Tony’s, hands skittering from his neck to his shoulders to his waist, as if Loki wasn’t quite sure where he wanted to touch.

The two principle annoyances – the green-tinted sunglasses and horned headband – melted away in a manner that Tony refused to think too hard about, the same way he always ran through complex mathematic equations in his head whenever Stephen Strange was talking.

And Loki was kissing him the way he did everything, fierce and intense, biting at his over-sensitized mouth, leaving Tony struggling to keep up.

He kind of wanted to punch himself in the face for never doing this before.

It took him a couple of seconds to even realize that Loki was moving, pulling him, thumbs in the waistband of his pants, until they were backed up against the smooth metal of the very panel that Loki had been restrained on in the first place. It was, admittedly, far more gratifying to pin him there with his body.

Loki’s leg twisted up around Tony’s thighs and his hands worked their way under Tony’s sweater. They were freezing. Tony found himself shuddering into the cold, almost chasing it. He felt Loki’s smug grin against his lips and tugged at his hair as a reprimand.

“I could slip into an anatomy more to your liking,” Loki murmured, nails harsh on Tony’s spine.

“What?” It was embarrassingly difficult to parse Loki’s meaning, distracted as he was by the scrape of teeth across his jaw. “No. I like you like this.”

That earned him a kiss to the jugular.

“You still possess the capacity to surprise me, Stark.”

“Uh, thanks?” He used the hand still in Loki’s hair to pull him up, kissing him again. “And, I guess, call me Tony?”

“If you prefer,” Loki said. His voice wasn’t entirely unaffected, but it was far steadier than Tony’s. That wouldn’t do.

Tony took a second to gather himself, and then sank slowly to his knees, eyes on Loki’s.

“You know,” he said, trying not to let his voice shake, “I can control the restraints individually. The wrist ones, for instance—”

“Yes.”

Setting his hand on the dip of Loki’s hipbone, Tony tapped the command that sent the wrist restraints shooting back out of the panel. Deliberately, obligingly, Loki spread his arms out to fit inside them. As soon as his skin was in contact with the metal, it slammed shut.

“Just let me know if you want out,” Tony said, and set to work unbuckling Loki’s belt. “No surprises in here, right?”

Loki smirked down at him. “Not unless you want there to be.”

“Right. Maybe another time.”

“Maybe.”

Tony’s head spun to think of doing this again; he was still getting over the idea that Loki was here and not evil and _wanted_ him, beyond flirting to mess with his head. And then he was pushing Loki’s ridiculously tight leather pants down and taking him in his mouth, reaching out to feel the tension rocket through Loki’s thighs.

“Gods…” Loki breathed, and there was the ominous sound of protesting metal. And to think, Tony had reinforced these restraints specifically to withstand the strength of a god. Thor had helped.

He started off slow, letting his jaw get used to the strain of it. It had been a while; the last time he’d gone down on a guy was before he’d died. Which was a shame – he’d almost forgotten how much he loved it. Above him, Loki was letting forth a litany of hissed curses in at least three different languages, voice progressing towards pleasantly wrecked. Tony rubbed circles into the crease of his groin, took him deeper. He just couldn’t forget – and didn’t want to – that this was a _god_ he was steadily taking apart. A god he was kneeling for.

It wasn’t like that word meant so much, nowadays, but he still liked it.

“I could elide your petty mortal bonds, if I so wished,” Loki gasped out. Challenging.

Tony pulled back, watched the way Loki’s hips strained towards him. Smiled.

“But you won’t.”

Loki’s mouth went lax; his cock jumped against his stomach. And Tony – he’d never been into this, never gotten off on controlling someone else. Bringing handcuffs into the bedroom was always a bit of good fun, but it had never felt as intense as it did now.

“I’ve dreamt of this,” Tony muttered. “No, seriously, after one of your leather-clad attempts to take over the world, I had this sex dream about you and felt guilty about it for literally _years_.”

“In the dream, did you talk this much?”

Tony grinned up him. “Like it doesn’t get you off. Try lying to someone who doesn’t have your dick in their face. Speaking of which.” And he reached out to spread pre-come along Loki’s length, keeping his touch light enough to frustrate.

“You’re – maddening,” Loki exhaled.

“I’ve been told,” Tony said. “I wonder how long I could keep you on the edge like this before you’d try to kill me.”

“ _Try_ ,” Loki sneered, but the threat was offset by the flush of his neck and cheeks.

“Well, it’s not as though you’ve succeeded thus far,” Tony pointed out. He swiped his thumb across the slit – Loki’s biology really was unerringly close to human, required further investigation – and reveled in the tremor it set off across Loki’s body. There was sweat in the hollow of his throat.

Before Loki could start up complaining again, Tony took him back in mouth. After only a few bobs of his head, a playful lick of the tip, he heard the restraint – the one on his left – give in to the pressure and come free. Loki’s hand tightened in his hair, and…and Tony hadn’t been _unaware_ , exactly, of his own arousal, but the clench of Loki’s fist at the back of his head sent sparks through his entire body, left him thrusting up into nothing.

“Hey,” he said, hoarsely, and released the second restraint before Loki could do any more damage. “That was expensive.”

“You can afford it,” Loki said. “Now, if you don’t _mind_ …”

This time, Tony sucked him deep, merciless, alternating between suction and soft humming that made Loki’s hand tighten in his hair, the pain of it delicious. It was only a minute before Loki was gritting out a very human, “Fuck,” and releasing into his mouth. The taste of it was not altogether unfamiliar, but not as unpleasant as Tony might have expected. It was a shame he wasn’t ever likely to get a larger sample size to compare it with.

The silence of the workshop in the aftermath felt oddly judgemental.

Loki’s hand didn’t leave his hair, but he began petting rather than tugging. Softly, he said, “Touch yourself.”

A blink of Loki’s deceptively innocent eyes and Tony’s pants and underwear were halfway down his legs, without him moving an inch. His heart hammered arrhythmically. He did as he was told.

The first touch of his hand had his legs splaying further apart, wanton, putting himself on display. He earned a hum of approval from Loki as he thrust into his own hand, trying to ignore the small, needy noises emanating from his own mouth.

“That’s lovely, Tony.” Loki sank down to his level, kissing him more slowly than he had before. Tony all but panted into it, hand speeding up on his own dick. “So good. Now come for me.”

Gods help him, Tony did, biting at Loki’s bottom lip as he spilled over the edge, breathing as hard as if he’d just run a marathon. “Jesus Christ,” he said. Loki hummed in response. “Don’t suppose you have any tricks to clean up the mess?”

Loki rolled his eyes. “Must you degrade my magic so?” But in a spark of green that Tony guessed was just for show, his skin was no longer sticky, pants no longer ruined.

“It’s the only thing that keeps my scientific mind sane,” Tony said. He should put some distance between them, or at least cover himself back up (something Loki had neglected to do magically) but the feeling of Loki’s cool hand on his neck was too soothing to give up so soon. He closed his eyes for a moment, cataloging the soreness of his knees, the delectable tension in his muscles.

“Well,” he said, “I suppose it goes without saying that you’re welcome back any time.”

Loki pulled back, then, grinning. “I may just take you up on that.”

He got to his feet, lithe, unruffled, looking for all appearances like the same annoying trickster god who’d shown up in Tony’s lobby half an hour ago. Before Tony even got the chance to do his pants back up, Loki was strolling through the workshop as though he owned it, intelligent eyes scanning over the trails of robotics that covered almost every free surface.

Tony rolled his shoulders back, tried to get his head back together. He put himself back together in increments, starting with running a hand through the hopeless mess of his hair, trying to spread the gel evenly. With slow, deliberate movements, he made his way over to the desk with the simplest circuitry on it, pulling his pants up as he went. Maybe if he pretended to be working, Loki would leave and give him some time to process the magnitude of what he’d just done.

No such luck.

“So, the Avengers,” Loki said. “I understand you recently enlisted Doctor Strange, if you require a _proper_ sorcerer to show him the ropes. I’m also open to a leadership position if Captain America is off petting a dog or something. Ooh, _shiny_.”

Tony whipped around to see Loki inspecting a bolt from the Anvil, standing altogether too close to the unfinished model.

“Hey!” he said. “Put that back!”

“Why? Is this piece important?”

“It’s a _car_!” Tony exclaimed, striding across the room to protect his baby from meddling tricksters who couldn’t hope to understand how complex and irritating Midgardian engineering was. “ _All_ of the pieces are important!”

“Calm down, I’m putting it back,” Loki said, smirking. “Heaven forbid I prevent the great Tony Stark from inventing the _car_.”

“ _Re_ -inventing,” Tony said. He’d never been able to resist explaining his technology, given the opportunity. “Self-driving, solar-powered, dirt cheap and equipped with ‘Starki’ – the same digital assistant that’s in every Stark Phone. That baby’s gonna save more lives than Iron Man.”

“Bit of a humble-brag.”

Tony felt shutting himself back off, pulling on his public persona. He hated having to do this in the workshop, the one place that felt authentically like _him_. “I’m Tony Stark,” he said flatly. “It’s a regular brag. I call it Automated Nanophotonic Vehicular Luxury, or ‘The Anvil.’ And it needs to be ready to show stockholders in fewer hours than I’d like.”

He actually had a week, but weeks could be measured in hours.

“You named a vehicle after a heavy, immovable object?”

Tony pressed a frustrated hand to his forehead, closing his eyes. “Listen, trademark law is very – you know what? Why am I still talking to you? You’re applying to the Avengers? Application denied.”

 _That_ got the infuriating, supercilious look at out Loki’s eye.

“But I’m already _Avenging_! I destroyed your illegal sky casino for you!”

“I don’t _own_ an illegal sky casino.” How flattering, that Loki thought he did.

“You’re welcome!”

“Nice try.”

“Wait, really? Then whose illegal sky casino did I trash?”

“No idea.”

He tried turning away, but Loki wasn’t deterred. And – it wasn’t as though Tony was _trying_ to be a dick, but Loki as an Avenger…well, for one thing, it would be a PR nightmare. Secondly, if it got out that Tony had slept with him (or _was_ sleeping with him, present tense) he’d get raked over the coals, quite possibly by the US government. And, perhaps most importantly, this was _Loki_. Tony would have to be more foolish than anyone had ever given him credit for to take the god of lies at his word.

“Okay,” Loki was saying, “but I really _thought_ it was yours! I fought a crime! Listen to my voice. Am I lying to you?”

That last sentence – the weight of it felt like it was reverberating through Tony’s skull. So this is what it’s like when he _really_ tells the truth, he thought.

He believed him. But it was difficult to believe _in_ him, not when decades of history told him not to.

“Fine. Thank you for blowing up a building.”

“Airship,” Loki corrected.

“Whatever. You’ve got your fifteen minutes of goodwill right now, but we both know how this always ends. You want to prove you’re worthy to join the Avengers?” Tony asked. “Next time I see you, walk in carrying Thor’s hammer.”

And he turned back to welding, figuring he may as well get some work done on the car even if it _was_ mostly to make a point.

“…Deal,” Loki said, so quietly Tony almost couldn’t make it out.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

It was that, more than anything, that caused the barest amount of genuine trust to spread over Tony’s memories of the Loki who had threatened him and his friends and his world countless times.

“Cool,” he said, ignoring the tightness of his throat. “You can leave the way you came in.”

“I came in forty-two floors up an elevator shaft.”

Like he didn’t know that Tony knew he was perfectly capable of teleporting out.

“If you don’t mind. Bye, Loki.”

There was a buzz on one of the displays to his right: a prototype Stark Phone had left the workshop, which he supposed meant Loki had left, too.

He breathed out, chest aching with it. Almost without thinking, he brought two fingers up to touch the place on his neck where Loki had kissed him. His pulse was as steady as it ever was, if slightly fast. Nothing monumental had changed – he and Loki were obviously still antagonistic, still on opposite sides, or at least not on the same one – but he couldn’t help thinking of what could happen the next time they met. Whether anything would be different then.

**Author's Note:**

> i made a deal with my wonderful motivator and editor chasingconstellations so if this fic gets 50 kudos, i will write a follow-up wherein tony tells steve/the avengers that he deserves 1000 points in the loki flirting competition for...reasons.
> 
> regardless of whether a sequel appeals to you, i adore feedback of all kinds, so kudos and comments are extremely appreciated
> 
> i can be found @[morgans-starks](https://morgans-starks.tumblr.com/) on tumblr or on twitter [here](https://twitter.com/oopshidaisy)


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